Canucks' Daniel Sedin prepared to take responsibility

Vancouver Canucks centre Jordan Schroeder (45) and Daniel Sedin (22) celebrate a Yannick Weber (6) goal against the Colorado Avalanche in the first period of an NHL game on Thursday, March 27, 2014, in Denver.

Photograph by: Jack Dempsey
, AP

DENVER – Before he says anything about next season, Daniel Sedin wants you to know he's not giving up on this season.

Yes, statistically, it was a winter wasteland for the Vancouver Canucks and their wondertwins, Daniel and Henrik. The scoring famines the Sedins endured are incomprehensible, beyond what anyone thought possible for the Canucks who have been among the best and most prolific offensive players in the National Hockey League for nearly a decade – top-10 scorers since the 2004 lockout.

As Henrik said recently, the brothers figured under new coach John Tortorella's system, their offensive production might slip six or seven points this season. Not 30. And never with Daniel, the NHL scoring champion only three years ago, going 23 games without a goal and waiting until March 26 to score his first in 2014. Never with Henrik, the 2010 points champion and Hart Trophy winner, going 12 games without a point during the Canucks' worst stretch of the season.

Even Henrik's ironman streaks are diminished, a rib injury in January ending one at 679 games and a knee injury last Sunday capping another at just 13 games. Pathetic.

But Daniel scored in Wednesday's 5-2 win against the Minnesota Wild, then collected the 800th point of his career with a first-period assist in Thursday's 3-2 overtime loss against the Colorado Avalanche. Henrik hopes to play again this season and the Canucks, which fell off a cliff on Dec. 30 and went 5-16-4 the next 10 weeks, still cling stubbornly to the playoff race, five points out with seven games to go.

So, Daniel is conceding nothing except this: the Sedins haven't been good enough, they make no excuses, and will be much better next season. And the three seasons after that.

The possibility that age – they turned 33 last September – might have suddenly ambushed them with its blunt weapon and the Sedins will never be the same? That hasn't even penetrated Daniel's consciousness.

Not until we asked, anyway.

“I think it's understandable,” Daniel said when the theory was put to him. “Where we are, in our market, it's understandable some people would think that. I never get upset anymore with what people say. For us, we're going to take full responsibility for what happened with our season and do everything we can to get back and be better.

“I think that's a strength of ours – to not blame anyone or anything, but just understand what happened and why and then come back and be better. We're going to come back and be really good players for a lot of years; that's the way I look at it.”

Based on what we've seen since 2004 from these ginger-haired boys from Ornskoldsvik, there isn't much reason to doubt Daniel. Naturally, though, many people will.

Admiration for the Sedins in Vancouver has always been grudging. They'd have probably quit the NHL and gone home to Sweden early in their career were it not for the encouragement of former teammates like Markus Naslund and Trevor Linden, who saw the Sedins' potential greatness before the rest of us.

And even when they eventually soared as players, winning those consecutive scoring titles and helping the Canucks win more games than any team over a five-year period, their shrillest critics – the progressive-thinkers who demean them as “sisters” – merely went mute. But now, in the Sedins' first poor season since before the two lockouts, the first when both have had significant injuries, the old criticisms are dusted off and thrown back at them as side dishes to the new one that they are suddenly too old and have “lost it.”

In fact, it's the Canuck team that has lost it this season, plummeting to 27th in offence. For three months, you were lucky to find anyone scoring. Chris Higgins now and then. Ryan Kesler in spurts.

But the Sedins are paid to run the power play and score and lead the attack, and at this they have failed. For once.

Uncomfortably, their lousy seasons – actually poor half-seasons because when 2014 began both were near enough to point-a-game players that no one was worried – are coming after the Sedins signed twin four-year, $28-million-US contract extensions on Nov. 1.

“We've never looked at contracts as adding pressure,” Daniel said before facing the Colorado Avalanche. “Last time when we signed, everyone thought we made too much money then, too. We 'weren't first-line players' – stuff like that. It didn't bother us then and it's not going to bother us now.

“We're going to do everything we can to make the playoffs. Hopefully, we still make the playoffs and we'll see what happens. It's been a tough 2014. But if you want to come up with excuses and say you had injuries – whatever – you're not going to come back and have a good year. All you can do is blame yourself and look for stuff that makes you better and work even harder.

“I really believe we're going to come back and have a great year – a great four years. There's no question in my mind about that. We're going to work even harder to come back as better players and better people.”

Vancouver Canucks centre Jordan Schroeder (45) and Daniel Sedin (22) celebrate a Yannick Weber (6) goal against the Colorado Avalanche in the first period of an NHL game on Thursday, March 27, 2014, in Denver.

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